Let’s End the Witch Hunt for “Becky With the Good Hair”

The Becky witch hunt began even before the HBO premiere of Beyoncé’s masterful, Internet-shattering Lemonade film was over: Who was the “other woman” called out in the screw-you anthem, “Sorry”? The lyrics, dropped with dramatic flair at the bitter end of the track, gently trolled the Bey Hive: “He only want me when I’m not there / He better call Becky with the good hair.”

She may not be Rachel Roy, and she’s definitely not Rachael Ray. She’s not Rita Ora, either. In fact, it doesn’t matter who “Becky with the good hair” is, if she even exists at all, so let’s call off the search. Slowly back away from Twitter and Instagram, and repeat after me: It’s not Becky’s fault. If there is a Becky, she wasn’t the one who made a marriage vow to Beyoncé. It’s time to stop blaming real or suspected “other women.”

As a friend argued in an urgent Facebook status this morning: “So many people searching for Becky . . . is no one mad at Jay Z?” Apparently not, as fans who took Lemonade literally unleashed their wrath squarely on Becky. It didn’t help that Roy captioned an Instagram of herself “good hair don’t care” shortly after the visual album aired, but idle Google sleuthing turned ugly fast. Roy and her 16-year-old daughter (and, mistakenly, Ray) were attacked by bullies who deluged her Instagram with nasty comments and changed her Wikipedia page to list her as a “dusty side hoe” who died under a lemonade stand. Ora stoked the flames when she Snapchatted herself in a lemon-print bra; she, too, was swiftly stung by the Bey Hive. Both Roy and Ora have denied the rumors, but that didn’t stop the Today show from speculating, or online news outlets from publishing “Every woman who could be ‘Becky with the good hair’” articles.

Curiously, I didn’t see a single “One Husband Who Might Have Cheated on Beyoncé” article. It’s easy to fall back on the sexist trope that “other women” are temptresses who lure good men into bad behavior, but it’s hardly just. The truth, of course, is that men aren’t infants or innocent bystanders in affairs; they are adults with agency. The only difference is that the public tends not to shame men for their sexual indiscretions; we’d rather save that condescension for the other women.

The irony of Beckygate is that the world may be looking for someone who is not there: The New York Post (among other theorists) reports that Becky is not one person but a “composite” of many women. Or Becky may not exist at all: Though nearly every searing line of Lemonade has been interpreted literally, Beyoncé herself describes the album as being “based on every woman’s journey of self-knowledge and healing.” Lemonade is bigger than Becky, so let’s call off the search.